Pearl Harbor: When the world changed

TUSCALOOSA | Winfield native Clint Youngblood was hunting with his cousin in the woods just below Haleyville on a Sunday in 1941 when he heard the news — Pearl Harbor had been attacked.

By Lydia Seabol AvantStaff Writer

TUSCALOOSA | Winfield native Clint Youngblood was hunting with his cousin in the woods just below Haleyville on a Sunday in 1941 when he heard the news — Pearl Harbor had been attacked. As a teen, Youngblood said he wasn't sure where Pearl Harbor was. But he knew the news was big. “We heard it on the radio, after we came out of the woods,” Youngblood said. “We were stunned. Everyone was.”Within a matter of days, his cousin, Homer Smith, enlisted in the Navy and left for the war. About two years later, Youngblood also enlisted, for the Naval Air Corps, where he helped harness B-25 bomber airplanes with its guns. For Youngblood — and a lot of World War II veterans like him who are now in their 80s and 90s — the attack on Pearl Harbor was the catalyst that changed not only their lives, but also the rest of the world. The Japanese attacked the U.S. naval base with planes and submarines 71 years ago today. During that attack, nine U.S. ships were sunk and 21 were severely damaged. At least 2,402 people died and 1,282 were wounded. “Pearl Harbor changed our world,” said Tuscaloosa resident Gene Watson, a Matador, Texas, native who served in the Merchant Marines through WWII. Watson was on the farm in northwest Texas where he grew up when he heard the news of Pearl Harbor.“It was all over town within a matter of hours,” Watson said. Many young men, like his brother Gene Watson, enlisted in the Army the next day — Dec. 8, 1941. “Growing up in Texas, they always said, ‘Remember the Alamo,' ” Watson said. “But after Pearl Harbor happened, it became like the Alamo. It just changed the world.” In 1941, Watson was too young to join the military, but he did as soon as he could. When he couldn't get into the Navy because of being colorblind, he signed up for the Merchant Marines and delivered military supplies all over the world. Watson, who now lives in Tuscaloosa, served in the Atlantic and Pacific and was on a ship that was torpedoed in the Indian Ocean in 1944. He survived more than a week on a lifeboat. “World War II made boys into men,” Watson said.Tuscaloosa resident Curtis Duco grew up on a farm in Delaware, something he said prepared him for his time in the military. Duco was 16 when he heard about the attack. “I was working on the farm and heard the news on the radio, heard Franklin D. Roosevelt with that voice that he had,” Duco said. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, almost every man who was 18 or older in Duco's small farming community enlisted. All four of Duco's older brothers joined, and so did Duco when he turned 18 in 1943. “When I left, I had to beg my mother because my four brothers were already involved,” Duco said. “Here I was a youngster, running a big farm all by myself.”Duco joined the 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, where he served in the Ardennes Forest during the Battle of the Bulge and then later served in central Germany at the end of the war. He went on to eventually serve in the Korean War and in Vietnam. But Watson said he doesn't consider himself a hero. “I wasn't a hero of any kind, but it was just one of those things you had to do at the time. It was automatic,” Watson said. On Dec. 7, 1941, Brewton native Jimmy Wall was a 16-year-old high school student.“When I heard about Pearl Harbor, I didn't know where it was or how far it was,” Wall said.But, the attack still had an impact, he said. Everyone wanted to do their part to help, including his father, who tried to enlist but was told he was too old because he was 43. So, his father moved to Mobile to build ships instead, he said. “Pearl Harbor had a tremendous impact, because it brought everybody together,” Wall said. “I didn't know a soul that became eligible for the draft who didn't join, because everybody wanted to help.”In 1943, a week before his 18th birthday, Wall joined the Navy's hospital corps. “I say I'm not a hero, because I took care of the heroes,” Wall said. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Emory Hubbard was a sophomore at the University of Alabama, an athlete who lettered in track.“I remember I heard about Pearl Harbor, but I didn't know what Pearl Harbor was at the time,” Hubbard said. About six months after the attack, Hubbard joined the Navy. He served in the shore patrol in California through World War II. He later served in the Korean War.“It seems like such a long time ago,” Hubbard said of the attack on Pearl Harbor. “A lot of water has run under the bridge since then.”Still, because of Pearl Harbor, the world changed, Duco said.